"Not hard to me, Winifred," he whispered.

"Never, never hard to me." Left alone, he paced up and down his study.

He was at home again, among all the dear familiar things that spoke to him of so many happy years.
His house to-night would be full of charming people, who liked and admired him.

Yet all the time, underneath his pleasure and hopefulness and satisfaction, he was conscious of the vibration of an unnatural excitement.

Amid this light and warmth and friendliness, he sometimes started and shuddered, as if some one had stepped on his grave.
Something had broken loose in him of which he knew nothing except that it was sullen and powerful, and that it wrung and tortured him.
Sometimes it came upon him softly, in enervating reveries.